Saint's Feast Days?

[stuckinamo]

Yesterday, my Sociology teacher said to me, "I can never understand why the Catholic Church has St. Patrick's Day right in the middle of Lent." (we had been discussing how it occasionally falls on Fridays and how last year Bishops said we could have meat on the Friday if we abstained the wednesday preceding it.)

she then asked me how Saints got their Feast Days. I was unable to answer her question. I have just looked through the Catechism and couldn't find an answer. Could someone help me out on this? Is there any significance to a Saint's Feast Day?

Thanks in advance!
Peace & love in Christ,
mj

[cappie]

The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organising a liturgical year on the level of days by associating each day with one or more saints, and referring to the day as that saint's day. [b]The system arose from the very early Christian custom of annual commemoration of martyrs on the dates of their deaths.[/b] As the number of recognized saints increased , eventually every day of the year had at least one saint who was commemorated on that date. With the reorganisation of the calaldar some saints were moved to another day or completely removed .

Some saints were moved out of Lent some like St Patrick and St Joseph were so entrenched that they were not moved I suppose. especially if you have to deal with the Irish

Today it is usual to keep the death anniversary as the feast day.